Delphinium - Trapunto'd Flowers

satin stitched edges

 I am getting the Delphinium top ready for machine quilting now. The pieces are fused to the background, but I always stitch pieces down because fusing is just a temporary hold in my experience. The first thing I do is satin stitch around the pots and pitchers. To the left you can see this in the works.











trapunto step 1

I want to have the flowers be a bit more prominent than the rest of the top, so I am going to add a second layer of batting behind the flowers. I call this trapunto, but it is not "true trapunto".  True trapunto involves threading yarn through three layers of quilting, and is done by hand. This method is faster and much easier!

To get the trapunto effect I lay a piece of batting on the top back, over the area where the flowers are located. I am using a wool batting piece for this because it is puffier than the batting I will use for the entire piece.

The next step is to stitch from the front around the flower shapes, very close to the edge of the flower shapes. This photo shows the stitching around one of the flower shapes.





trapunto step 2

After stitching around the flower areas, you need to trim the batting very close to the stitching line. Here you see the back of the top with the trapunto batting layer trimmed. After the trimming is done then you sandwich the top with a layer of batting and the back just like you would any other quilt.

The photo below shows the puffier appearance of the flower area with the batting behind it. Now I'm onto the machine quilting phase!

trapunto puffy appearance










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